To want to send an angry email to our house buyer after he pulled out days before exchange

No one pulls out after searches and surveys on a whim because they will have already spent £000s on it. Either something was discovered which has put them off or something in their circumstances has materially changed.

What was more important than getting your "dream house"?

Unless it was a life or death emergency, that absolutely needed both of you to be there.

Year’s ago a friend pulled out of a sale at the very last minute (she had to pay a penalty or something). She felt really terrible about it but had unexpectedly got an incredible job offer she couldn’t turn down (long before remote working, in advertising and could probably easily do it from home nowadays, but not back then). It was nowhere near this house so she either had to turn down the house or the job. She chose to take the job.

Sometimes there are valid reasons and difficult decisions have to be made. Still sucks for the seller though.

Making an offer/accepting an offer is never a full commitment ri buy. It's the start of a process where a buyer can make all the necessary steps to reassure themselves that they want to go ahead, then contracts are exchanged. Even then it's not an unbreakable commitment, they just forfeit a deposit by way of compensation for the inconvenience if they don't go ahead.

You don't change preschools, make any financial commitments or do anything else that until contracts are exchanged.

Exchange and completion on the same day is possible but it's insane to agree to it if the property being sold is your main residence. No one can make arrangements to empty a property same-day, movers need at least 2 weeks notice, and booking movers before contracts are exchanged is very unwise.

Yabu to blame the person who made the offer. They made no commitment to you. Next time around, don't assume anything is happening until contracts have been signed.

Irrespective of what we all think of the system - this is the system.

YABU to contact them directly. How do you know someone hasn’t lost their job, a family member - literally any change in personal circumstance could have caused this, as well as them just being annoyed and inconvenienced at how slow things were.

Of course it’s disappointing. I’d let it be a lesson.

You do all your checks, make an offer (which might be conditionalon a few things, ie selling your house), the offer is accepted, you pay a deposit and you agree on a date to complete. If you pull out before then (which you can) you lose your deposit which is usually 10% of the sale price. This seems a much more logical system

Sometimes people pull out of purchases for very good reasons.

We once did when a survey revealed that proper planning permission for a garage and outbuildings hadn't been sought.

The sellers were furious and tried to force us to complete that day with a discount. In the end we had to tell the agent to stop contacting us about it.

It sounds like you're confused over what exchange actually is. You don't move on exchange day, you move on competition day. You can choose for them to be the same day, but traditionally there's a couple of weeks in between, with the competition date being set in stone on the day of exchsnge. So it's all fixed and arranged, and people are working to a known date. If you've refused to exchange, or are trying to do it all on the same day you might well end up losing further buyers. At least make sure you understand the process. It might well be that its you who gave him cold feet and reason to back out.

A deposit is paid, but only at exchange which is when the sale is protected. This is why it was foolish of the OP to delay exchange.

OP - on a practical advice note: have you considered those companies that buy properties for cash very quickly? You won't get the full market value (about 85%) but the sale can be completed within a few weeks hassle free and they pay all the solicitors and other fees.

Why can't a deposit be made so that nobody can back out as and when they like???

Here it's called earnest money. Although here, once an offer is accepted you usually have about 30 days to move out of the house. Our seller wanted 60 and our attorney negotiated 45.

This makes no sense. You could have exchanged and then completed on another day

It would be very intrusive to send an email to the buyer, using information you had to google to find out about him. Not appropriate. There could be absolutely any reason why he's pulled out.

I'm not in the UK and one day a young woman came into our office to get some paperwork copied as she was selling a flat she owned in the UK (she had moved back here). Honestly, it was like a whole book's worth, nothing like the few sheets of paper involved here.

Also a friend recently bought and sold in the UK and seemed to spend a lot of time sorting out various information about the property to take to the solicitors - things which the estate agents or solicitors do here.

It's so complicated, I don't know how you all cope!

Well, if you send an "angry" email, you're unlikely to get an answer as to why.

How about if you sent a "disappointed" email, explaining sadly all the fallout and asking why? You might learn something useful.

There are, in fact, systems with non-refundable deposits.

The system is broken. To be honest I think angry emails to the solicitors across the country who drag things out for months as a standard practice would be more on point. We could have a deposit system, and it would help but the length of time things take is a significant factor in the breakdown of an offer and makes everything more difficult to plan around. It's rarely necessary. It's generally because bits of paper sit on desk (or electronic files on computers) untouched for days or weeks at a time, with buyers and sellers overwhelmed by and unsure about the details they are supposed to supply and solicitors putting things off while they deal with other clients.

It's become standard and there isn't sufficient pressure to sort it out. Solicitors in particular don't feel any pain from offers falling through even though they are often a cause.

Sending an email might make you feel better but it won’t make a blind bit of difference and the buyer will just think you are a fool . It’s unfortunate but these things happen and why you would change pre schools etc before you’ve exchanged is utter madness . Hopefully you will find a new buyer promptly .

I wouldn’t bother sending an email. He obviously doesn’t care. But it’s reasonable to be very upset. He should have paid a deposit, non-refundable

I wouldn’t bother sending an email. He obviously doesn’t care. But it’s reasonable to be very upset. He should have paid a deposit, non-refundable

I wouldn’t bother sending an email. He obviously doesn’t care. But it’s reasonable to be very upset. He should have paid a deposit, non-refundable

For months after everyone else was ready to exchange, the seller at the top of our chain kept us waiting with his probate issues. Finally, he pulled out because he'd decided to sell the property to one of his children instead! He had the nerve to say to the estate agent, "you don't sound very happy with our decision!"

The chain collapsed. I still bought the same property (18 months after my offer was accepted), but my sellers and their sellers had to find alternatives. My sellers and I lost our decent mortgage deals and had to accept ones with much higher interest rates. I dread to think how much that man has cost us in total. I don't know his name or address, but if I did, I would happily send him a parcel of dead fish.

Lets assume that is the case, socks hanging find another property, place a bid and go through the process in time for the may? That’s a weak excuse to walk away from a house purchase but then it’s not his fault, the system is a mess so he hasn’t done anything illegal

Don't bother emailing.
Revenge never makes people feel better. Move on.

I can't speak for all countries, but if you accepted an offer in February here you would be well settled into the house before May.

I agree OP. I'm not in the UK and our system is so much easier. A deposit is paid and once the sale becomes unconditional then that deposit is forfeited if you pull out. The UK system seems so cumbersome - and it takes so long for the transaction to be completed. Once a house is sold here people are moving in within weeks.

This. It’s very unfortunate but we went through the same (Christmas 2023 just as all businesses closed!).

I wanted to throttle the buyer but there’s nothing you can do. We eventually completed in August 2024.